Road to Nationals Week 12 I'm back!!

Many people would look at the 5/3/1 program for powerlifting and at first glance not see enough volume overall for the main lifts or for a particular main exercise and immediately push it to the side.

The first time I read thru the book, I thought the same thing, no way can this work not enough volume in it to make progress. I have gone in many different directions with his different programs and in the end take a big guess what is working for me, his 5/3/1 for powerlifting. But I’m adding some differences because they work for me.

I’m always reading articles and kindle books and since my last blog, I’ve read some really great material.

One of these was a free pdf book written by Dave Tate (owner of elitefts) and Jim Wendler back in 2008 titled EFS (elite fitness systems) Basic Training. Does a great job of explaining conjugate training which I never really grasped until I read this book. This type of training revolves around three different training methods.

Maximal training method: training at 90% plus of your 1 rep max

Dynamic training method: training at a sub max weight at the fastest speed possible

Repetition training method: training at a sub max weight till failure or close to it

What I thought was different about this type of program was on your maximal training days you never trained your actual competition lift, it was always a variation of it. The speed work was also very interesting. This book got me thinking yet again how I could incorporate some of it into my own program based of 5/3/1 for powerlifting.

These are the changes I made starting two weeks ago.   

For the squat instead of doing my normal low bar squat, I’m doing a low bar pin squat. Nothing earth shattering just creating way more intensity because I kept the same programmed weights and applied it to this variation instead. I also added two back down sets or in 5/3/1 terminology 2end set last. These are purely only if I feel I can do them and only on week 1 and 3 in a 4 week training cycle.

The bench press I’m still trying to nail down the right type of training to help me increase it. Here are my changes on day 1 which is shoulders I added a speed work day for bench press with bands. On day 3 which is my normal bench day I switched to sling shot bench press.

For deadlift I’m still going conventional and I made some more changes. I chose to work the 5/3/1 program in 4 week cycles. This means week 1 is heavy, week 2 is medium, week 3 is heavy and week 4 is light. For deadlift I work my normal calculated weights and sets for week 1, week 2 is speed work, week 3 is the same as week 1 except if I feel good I will push some 1 rep attempts and week 4 is speed work. For all my deadlift work I now use a ¾ rubber mat under my feet. Turns it into a deficit lift but I find it does not compromise my form at all.

All my speed work for bench and deadlift will be either bar plus weight or bar plus weight plus bands or bar plus weight plus chains. I’m going with 7 sets of 3 reps each and 1 minute rest intervals. Basing the weights under the 5/3/1 system at 50 to 60%. The key is hitting a weight you can blast off the ground for all sets. The bar speed must not slow down by the last set or else you need to lower the weight come next workout.

I started my speed work last week on my week 4 deload and week 1 this week went off excellent. Below is my entire Week 1 workout and after completing it, I really feel good about the speed work and other changes I made. As I progress in the coming weeks with my home gym setup, I’ll be able to dial in these workouts and finally find a good blend that works for me.

Follow the latest star workout in the muscle mag and you WILL fail gym rats. Train smart!!

 

Day1 Shoulders

Military Press 95 x 10, 115 x 3, 135 x 3, 145 x 6 AMRAP

Red band speed bench press 195 x 3 for 7 sets 1 min rest intervals

Seated Two Arm Overhead Tricep Extensions 3 x 10

Face Pulls 4 x 10

Rope Curls 4 x 10

Day2 Squat

Pin Squat 2 count hold (below parallel) 225 x 5, 285 x 3, 325 x 3, 365 x 3, 325 x 3, 325 x 3

Front Squat 135 x 10, 185 x 8, 225 x 6

RDL 225 x 6, 275 x 6, 315 x 6, 365 x 6

Reverse Hypers

Abs

Day3 Bench

Bench Press with sling shoot

225 x 5, 275 x 3, 315 x 3, 335 x 3, 315 x 3, 315 x 3

Flat bench DB press 70 x 10, 100 x 14 AMRAP

Band rear laterals

Bent over supported rows 4 x 10/8/6/6

Day4 Deadlift

¾ in deficit conventional deadlift 275 x 5, 315 x 5, 365 x 3, 415 x 3, 470 x 3

DB farmers walk 3 rounds 100lbs

Reverse Hypers

12 min interval cardio

Road to Nationals Week 5 and 6

  Missed doing anything blog related last week as the beautiful weather was priority. Two more weeks done and I'm still in one piece. Going into week 5 I could feel my body giving me signs it was not happy and I was pushing the gas pedal too much with this program. My day 2 squat workout in week 5 in short kicked my ass hard. The tank was drained once I finished that sucker, which carried over to day 3-4 that week. Week 6 I made the mistake of not adapting to what was going on and nose dived even further. Day 2 and squats well that was a complete wash out. My top programmed set for 5 reps was 365lbs and after 1 rep I called it. Did some light romanian deadlifts after that and called it a workout. My day 3 bench workout did not feel strong at all but overall it went much better than my squat workout but I did drop the BBB sets. By the time day 4 came the changes I made in decreased volume and intensity during the week had me feeling better. All my deadlift work now is conventional only. Too many hip issues with sumo currently so I'm staying away from them. Deadlifts was the highlight of my week 6 and I spanked 500lbs for 1 rep with no issues.
This is the end of my 6 week block of so called hypertrophy training that went well up until the end of week 4. The culprit was the BBB sets and ever increasing the weight each week. There is a HUGE difference between doing 5 sets of 10 reps in a pyramid style and BBB sets with a compound movement. After week 4 I should have deloaded but instead well you read what happened above. There are many different ways to do the BBB program and I choose one of the hardest ways of course so next time I will choose a better option and probably only go for 4 weeks. 
Next up is a strength block that I will figure out how it looks over the coming week. This one will not be the same for all my training days. The original plan for week 7 was to test my training max for a AMRAP set for each lift excluding military press. Doing this would be a waste of time because I've overtrained. This will now be a deload week so I will cut back on how much accessory work I do and only work up to 1 rep with my training max for each lift.

Road to Nationals Week 4

The best part of this week had nothing to do with the gym. We are getting a round of awesome weather here on VI and we took full advantage of it on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was a beautiful hike along the Stoney Hill Trail and then Sunday we crushed it with a spectacular hike up to Green Mountain for 360 degree views of awesome. Well worth the sweat on both trips, its not all about lifting pig iron!!

Day 1 Shoulders
The BBB seated smith machine sets went awesome as I burned thru 5 sets of 10 reps with 135lbs and averaged about 45 seconds rest between sets. Paused all my feet up close grip bench press and 235lbs was feeling great for sets of 5 reps. Once again did lots of upper back work and I'm now at 95lbs DB for one arm rows for 5 sets of 10 reps.

Day 2 Squat
This is the start of another wave for the 5's progressive but the difference this time is my training max has been increased by 10lbs for the squat. For my top set in the 5's progressive this is how it looks. Week 1 315 x 10, Week 2 330 x 5, Week 3 345 x 5, Week 4 320 x 5, Week 5 340 x 5, Week 6 355 x 5. I call it the slow and steady method which is working for me. Making big jumps with the weights has always lead to injuries for me in the past.
For the BBB (boring but big) it's not a wave load but linear progression, basically pressing the gas pedal harder each week and topping out at week 6 which will be hard I have no doubt. It's amazing how the body adapts, when I look back at week 1 doing these sets of 10 reps I was rating a 6 RPE. Now after week 4 I'm doing 10 reps at 8 RPE with 55lbs more weight.
Week 1 185 x 10 5 sets, Week 2 205 x 10 5 sets, Week 3 225 x 10 5 sets, Week 4 230 x 10 5 sets, 250 x 10 5 sets, Week 6 265 x 10 5 sets.

Day 3 Bench Press
Still lots of upper back work on this day. The BBB sets gave me a awesome pump by the end and I'm definitely feeling these sets as the weeks progress. This will be my last session with my feet up for the 5's progressive sets as I want to start working on my technique for the bench press. Come week 7 I'll be back in the groove with normal benching and ready to spank 315lbs for reps.

Day 4 Deadllift
In the gym with my new barbell and it was feeling gtg. I switched up the programming on my deadlifts after getting the new barbell to a classic 5/3/1 workout except for deadlifts it's 3/5/1. Not much volume but I've found for me I do not need it to progress. Plus I feel not bad the next day. Other then warm up sets all I did was 345 x 3, 385 x 3, 430 x 3, 475 x 1 all conventional pulls with no back down sets. Sticking with conventional pulls and so far my lower back is hanging in there. Finished up with some low pin squats and that was it.

Day 5 Arms Race
Doing heavy ass dips I quickly found out I had lingering chest soreness from two days ago :). First workout doing heavy weights for low reps so I was feeling my way into it and figuring out what weight was good for the required reps. The weighted dips will hopefully help out my bench press. Was doing sets of dips with 145lbs strapped to me for 4 clean reps and this will go up each workout as my body adjusts. 

Road to Nationals Week 3

With week 3 done I will now increase my training max for the squat/deadlift by 10lbs and the bench press/military press by 5lbs. All my weights will be recalculated based off this, which will increase all my weights. The first 3 weeks all my weights for the 5's progression went up each week, along with the BBB sets. The BBB sets will actually get harder these last 3 weeks then the 5's progression. But that is ok because this is more focused on hypertrophy. Still going to hammer my upper back with lots of supersets. Lots of muscle soreness over the last 3 weeks and mid way thru the third week I could feel my body saying "I need a 2 day break". For the BBB sets I'm going to reset at 60% for the start of week 4 and then increase 5% each week. Slight change from my original plan but every plan is flexible. My new barbell arrived on Friday which surprised the hell out of me, seeing all the snow Calgary and surrounding area got. With that I'll be changing up my deadlift routine for the last 3 weeks. I'll be going back to a classic 5/3/1 schedule for this and might add in some BBB sets of 10 reps as back down sets. Going to try out the conventional deadlift for now and steer clear of sumo deadlift, which is bugging my hips as of late.

Day 1 Shoulders
Kept the seated smith machine military press and today the 5's progression sets stayed much the same to last week but once I hit the BBB sets this weight went up from last week. Again I kept the rest period under 45 secs between the BBB sets so supersetting back was out of the question. As I started into my warm up sets for the close grip bench press, I supersetted in good old fashion chin ups. The close grip bench press went up to 250lbs today and it moved with authority for all 3 sets of 5 reps. My last exercise was one arm DB rows and I upped the weight again this week to 90lbs dumbbells. So far I think the idea of hitting the main bench press muscles hard with reps in the hypertrophy range is starting to pay off. Once I get to the 7th week protocol I will see if I feel stronger in the bench press.

Day 2 Squats
This was an early Sunday morning up and hit the gym style workout. Which meant drink morning shake and head out, probably a mistake looking back :). By the time I finished my three 5's progressive sets this shake was ready to auto eject...and with that my energy levels went south and this turned into a grind workout to finish. All my heavy squat sets where pin squats and the heaviest set was programmed at 345lbs x 5. The BBB sets I took my time once again not rushing the reps, everything was deliberate and focused on honing in my technique. These sets are at 61% of my training max and I'm really starting to feel these weight jumps each week now. My lower back is also complaining so I'm paying attention to this and might tweak my squat volume going forward or drop my bent over rows for something else more lower back friendly. RDL's went ok but I was out of gas by this time so once these where done I passed on doing front squats. Live for another day..rather than drill myself into the ground.

Rest Day turned deadlift day. Meet up with Ryan at the gym to crush some heavy weight or at least he did. Ryan normally trains at another gym so it was awesome to have another powerlifter in the gym. Basically hogged one small space in the gym with a good quantity of 45lbs plates and let the rubber hit the floor, while the young bucks in the gym watched. Ryan was programmed in for some heavy DL's and I was exact opposite but I worked up to a 495lbs single sumo style and later crushed 405lbs with about 10 reps going conventional. Real happy with the workout except the fact my hip flexors would not settle down while doing sumo. Converted to conventional on all my back down sets. I'm pretty sure Ryan pulled the heaviest deadlift ever in the gym at 565lbs, which was awesome.

Day 3 Bench Press
My programmed heaviest set was not what I hoped, missed it by 1 rep. This was feet up bench press and I managed 295lbs for 4 nice touch and go reps. Kept the ongoing theme of supersetting in a back exercise and for this one it was once again wide grip pullups. The weight went up once again for the cat style bench press to 185lbs and this time my paired back exercise was supported DB rows on a incline bench. Wanted to spare my lower back after deadlifting the day prior and this variation mimicked the bench press in a pulling fashion. Cut out the DB bench work at the end and called it a day. This is my third week running this bench press style and volume, without fail I'm getting chest DOMS within 24 hours each week.

Day 4 Deadlift
Dragged my new bar to the gym for this workout but kept with the programmed weights but less volume because of the deadlifting I did earlier in the week. This barbell is IPF spec with aggressive knurling so I had some hand DOM's by the end of the workout. Overall the barbell felt great and after a few workouts I'll be used to the knurling. For this workout everything was conventional deadlifts and my lower back felt pretty good, which is a great sign. With the way my hip area on the front is feeling I'll be sticking to conventional for awhile and see how it all plays out. My top sets today 315lbs x 10 reps nice clean reps and resetting each rep. Not just banging out 10 reps bouncing them off the floor. Followed up with some pin squats again which were heavier for my secondary squat day. 315lbs x 5 for 3 sets which felt heavy but I powered thru.

Day 5 Arms Race
This was my last arm workout using this particular routine I detailed in a older blog. Next will be a intensification phase which I'll push heavier weights for my arm workouts. This will be lower reps and higher intensity for this phase. Rest periods are at least 90 secs after each set.
A1 Dips 1x8, 2x3, 7x2
A2 Seated EZ bar incline scott curls 1x8, 2x3,7x2
B1Standing barbell curls 4 x 4-8 reps
B2 Decline EZ bar tricep extensions with or without chains 4 x 4-8 reps

Focus do not chase gym rats.

@lvdmedia

Road to Nationals Week 2

This week started off awesome, ordered up a new bells of steel powerlifting bar that is IPF spec and a great price point. The gym I work out at has three Olympic barbells, two are 30mm and one is 28mm in circumference. Competition bars are 29mm and believe me that 1mm makes a huge difference if you want to try out the hook grip. Once I have the new bar, I'm going to take another shot at getting used to using the hook grip on my heavy deadlifts. Either way this was THE barbell I wanted for our home gym eventually and I'll drag it to the gym for deadlift days. This is the company I'm eventually also going to purchase our home gym power rack from. The best prices for WHAT you get that I can find in Canada.
bellsofsteel.com

Day 1 Shoulders
I changed the main exercise up on this one from seated DB presses to seated smith machine military press. Same rep scheme nothing different but I found this exercise hit the front deltoids far better than the previous one. Weight for the close bench press feet up increased 20 lbs from last week which I had no problem working with. Added in a superset of medium grip pullups while I did the warm up and work sets for the close grip bench press. I had no time while doing my BBB sets on the smith machine because I only rested 45 seconds max between these sets. Finished with more upper back work which consisted of one arm DB rows and 20 mins of interval on the treadmill.
If I compare the amount of shoulder DOMS between seated DB press and seated SM military press, the SM version wins hands down. It's a keeper for now.

Day 2 Squat
Of all my lifts squat has been the one I cared the least about and in order to add more weight to the bar I will need to spend some time on refining this lift. Reading articles about different ways to squat can be very confusing. Again I always fall back to a easy to remember and apply method. Trying to complicate a lift just turns it into a cluster fuck. Dig this part of your foot into the floor , do this , do that and the list goes on and on. Up to this point I was squatting with a low bar style and a narrow  stance. Much like my sumo deadlift I wanted an easy 5 to 6 step process to execute the lift. In today's workout during my warm up sets I worked on filming from the side each set. I worked on increasing my stance slightly wider and did all my heavy work sets with a wider stance. My lower back did not like it but with time my strength and lower back will get better as I dial in my technique. The main 3 points because I squat without a belt is my breathing technique, keeping my spine in a neutral position and keeping tension throughout the entire lift. Once I moved to my BBB sets it was just more squatting and using each rep to concentrate on my lifting technique. My main issue with the wider stance was loosing tension in my lower back at the very bottom of the squat. VERY bad so I had to really concentrate on keeping tight all the way down and up.
After all the squatting next up was my fav RDL's with higher reps. Increased the weight from last week by 10 lbs on my last two sets and was feeling the burn on my hammies. Last up was front squats on the smith machine and like normal this sucked. I was done like dinner by the end of this workout.

Day 3 Bench Press
Oh this one left a mark the day after in the form of muscle soreness!! Increased the weight in all my exercises so this workout had me breathing at times like I just did an all out sprint. The combo that did this was feet up CAT style bench press 10 reps 10 secs rest then a set of bent over rows for 10 reps repeated for 5 sets. Heaviest set for my 5's Pro bench was 280lbs x 5 with my feet up at 9RPE.

Day 4 Deadlift
Busy busy at the gym so I ended up ditching the hex bar and splitting my deadlift sets between pulling conventional and sumo. Still not going with heavy weights or lower reps with the deadlift. Sticking to my plan and keeping the 5 sets of 10 reps with 4 of these sets at 315lbs and 1 set at 275lbs. Kept a deliberate pace crushing each rep off the floor and then lowering it under moderate control reset, repeat for 10 reps. Sounds easy but once you up the weight and slow everything down instead of cranking of a quick 10 reps makes a huge difference. This is also my secondary leg day so I finished up with some pin squats below parallel. Stuck with keeping my stance wider (shoulder width) and keeping tight throughout the entire range of motion. Actually felt real good doing 3 sets of 5 reps at 285lbs.

Day 5 Arms Race
This workout just gets harder each time because I'm able to handle slightly more weight or keeping the same weight farther into the workout before I have to lower it. But I love it. One more of these workouts then I'll be changing this one up.

Second week is done and I'm real happy with how this program is going for me so far. Increased the weights for all my exercises keeping the same amount of sets and reps. Next week everything goes up in weight one more time! The only change will be once I get the new deadlift bar. Going to add in the 5's progressive and keep either all or cut some of the 10 rep sets after for the deadlift.
One day off and then Saturday it all starts over with shoulders on tap.
Keep it strong gym rats!!

Week 1 Day 5 Building the Pipes!

As part of my efforts to move my bench press upwards I want to hopefully build my triceps and bring my biceps along for the ride. I've neglected biceps for awhile and triceps was mainly a steady diet of the same type of training. I've followed this arm program in the past faithfully for 6 months straight and it added 1/2 to my arms. That was after not increasing my arm size for a longggg fucking time so for me it worked. The program was written out in a ebook by coach Charles Poliquin titled Arm Size and Strength the Ultimate Guide. The neat thing about this ebook is all the exercises he prescribes are linked in the book to a youtube video. He uses old school methods along with a few twists to get results. Well worth the money...find it on amazon.
Arm-Size-Strength-Ultimate-Guide-ebook
I did this workout last Thursday and had arm soreness for a few days just doing three sets. Today I increased it to the programmed 4 sets. This is plenty of work for them and mine were torched at the end.
This is a triset workout for both biceps and triceps. This triset is done by doing three different bicep exercises in a row with 10 secs of rest in between. The 10 secs is given to help with some neural recovery, but by the end of the set every muscle fiber is roasted.
A1 Standing EZ Curls Narrow Reverse Grip 6-8 reps 10 secs rest
A2 Standing EZ Curls Medium Reverse Grip 10-12 reps 10 secs rest
A3 Standing DB Hammer Curls 20-25 reps 120 secs rest repeat A1-A3 for 3 to 4 sets
B1 Lying DB Presses Pronated Grip (palms facing away from you) 6-8 reps rest 10 secs
B2 Lying DB Presses Neutral Grip 10-12 reps 10 secs rest
B3 Standing Tricep Rope Pressdowns 20 -25 reps 120 mins repeat B1-3 for 3 to 4 sets.

The reverse grip work targets mainly the brachialis muscle which is the one that lies underneath the bicep and most people neglect. Expect severe soreness the next day and he also prescribes a killer tempo which is a 4 second eccentric for each rep.....like that happens for each one. Expect the weight to decrease also after each set. Have fun if you try it and no complaining. Do yourself a favour and buy the ebook.
K so one day of rest tomorrow and then this shit storm starts all over again on Saturday with more weight. I'll be cutting back to probably once a week for posts now that I have gone thru the entire program.
It's all about the arm's gym rats :).

Week 1 Day 4 Deadlifts

Hmm almost done except I forgot to mention I'm adding in a day 5, which is arms. Gotta work the pipes :). I did this arm workout last Thursday and had bicep/tricep DOMS for a few days, it's a good one which I'll be yacking about in tomorrow's blog.
Today was hex bar deadlifts and the RTS software was telling me this am that I was red lining for short term fatigue. Hopefully my body will adjust next week or else I'll have to start adjusting the volume of my workouts next week. The plan was BBB sets for the hex bar deadlifts so it was 275 lbs for 5 sets of 10. Felt gtg but I gave myself at least 2 mins between sets. I never superset anything with a deadlift once I'm into my working sets. During warm up sets I will do farmer walks to help speed up my workout. I did do dead hangs from the chin up bar between sets to stretch out my back, which I always find help it out.
Next was low bar pin squats in the squat rack. These felt better as I got thru my warm up sets and into the work sets. This is my secondary day for legs so it was just 3 sets of 5 reps. 
Skipped my last exercise because the equipment was being used and time was running out so I'll hit it tomorrow when I crush the pipes.

Workout for today
Hex Bar Deadlifts
225 x 5, 275 x 5 5 sets
Low Bar Pin Squats 225 x 5, 275 x 5 3 sets

Deadlift like him gym rats!!